Months of investigation yields no answers

Next Friday, Krystal Barrows will have been dead for eight months. Ross County officials say she died from an errant shot from a deputy’s gun during a raid by a drug task force looking for guns, stolen property and drugs.

Five months ago, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office formally accepted the case to review and determine the contents of the final report that, hopefully, would help bring some clarity to the events of that fateful night.

Eight months later, the community — and more importantly, the Barrows family — is still waiting for the answers.

Law enforcement officials say the wait on the final report is “typical” and the long investigation, followed by a second review, is meant to take the local politics out of the equation. The move to have an outside review is laudatory, but it’s certainly come at an agonizing price for the Barrows family. For them, minutes turned to hours, which turned into days, which turned into months, which has resulted in no more answers than they had months ago.

It’s time for state officials to show more urgency on this case than they have. It’s time for a decision on this case. In short, it’s time for justice to come for the Barrows family.

Why should they have to agonize further over what the report will contain? Why should they wait even longer than they already have waited for answers? Certainly, more than seven months is adequate time to provide the answers the community needs about a woman’s death.

As we said in a similar editorial in May, the deputy whose weapon fired the fatal shot returned to active duty less than two months after Barrows’ death. The family of Krystal Barrows has no answers as to why that suspension was handed out nor do they know if that is the end of the process for the deputy.

As we’ve said before, the circumstances that put Barrows inside the house at the time of the raid are secondary to the fact that she died as a result of someone else’s act.

Enough is enough. Wrap up the investigation and release the report to the public.